Back in El Paso we saw the Rio Grande, then we paddled it in Big Bend State Park and Big Bend National Park, and now we saw it here in Northern New Mexico as well. Our Vistas de Questa ride was 27 miles with 2317′ of climbing.
Questa is a small village down the highway from Red River and there is a singletrack trail system right on the edge of town that we checked out. Starting on the Punto de Coyote Vista the singletrack climbed up and around a rock capped mountain and afforded good views of the valley. It’s a very rocky and tight trail! It reminded me of the riding east of Bend.
We continued on singletrack up and around different mountains always heading towards the Rio Grande. The riding is swoopy and fun, though I’m guessing it doesn’t get a ton of use. There are some challenging switchbacks, plenty of tricky little sections, but also fast singletrack through sagebrush. All the campgrounds in the area are closed because of the pandemic so there were zero people on our entire ride. We even had La Junta viewpoint to ourselves!
La Junta Overlook
La Junta which means, “meeting or joining” in Spanish is appropriate for this viewpoint because it’s where Red River and the Rio Grande rivers converge. Red River starts way up by Wheeler Peak at 13,161′ and the Rio Grande starts way up in the San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado. La Junta marks the widest and deepest part of the Rio Grande Gorge at three quarters of a mile wide and 800 feet deep. This was very cool to see.
After gazing at the wonder of this giant canyon, we continued on our way and rode some doubletrack back to the trail we came in on earlier. The ride back was just as tough as the ride out! Once again we beat the afternoon thunderstorms. Knock on wood, we’ve had good luck.
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